Jitters

What does it mean that the only way for me to calm my nerves before leading services is to watch this video?

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/uncensored.shtml

High Anxiety

I am so nervous about leading services tomorrow night because I'm giving the sermon. I'm done writing it, but oh, it is just SO outreachy and typical.

Basically the story is this: Korach leads a rebellion against Moses and Aaron. Korach is basically like George W. Bush, a bad, greedy, erstwhile wanna-be who cloaks his lust for ambition and wealth in a G-dly message (that G-d is an equal opportunity leadership trainer and so Moses and Aaron are needlessly raising themselves above the others).

Eventually, after falling on his face (Moses does a lot of that) the argument escalates and Moses shuts it down by suggesting they engage in an old-west style incense and firepan throwdown. G-d, he tells Korach, will reveal the true leader.

And G-d shows up to cast the winning vote. It's like Iron Chef, except that Korach and his 250 rebels get swallowed up by the earth, instead of humiliation at the hands of the Chairman and Fukui San.

Classic story line from My Bodyguard (anyone remember that movie?) Or when Jerry Mouse takes the thumbtack out of Butch the Bulldog's paw and gets a golden whistle in return. Anytime Tom hassles him: just whistle. And receive some fine Old Testamant justice for your trouble.

I know I have all day tomorrow to tweak this but this is one of those moments when I wonder how pertinent the whole conversion thing will be. Will people be willing to forgive an outreachy drash because it's given by a Jew-by-Choice? Or will I be held to a different standard, that I don't have to be as smart or cool since I wasn't born into this people. Or will they just think I'm out and out stupid and that I should just stick to singing. You can't mess up the lecha dodi too badly, even if you were born Catholic.

Speaking of which: hopefully the singing part won't go too badly.

Shabbat shalom.

Imagine

So there I was last night, sitting on my couch and watching Law & Order, as I am wont to do on weeknights when I am actually at home, when the phone rang. 503 area code. Oregon. It could only be one person.

It was my dearly cherished, long-lost friend Jim, red of hair, blue of eyes, kind of heart. And also, sadly enough, a foot soldier in the sugar wars.

Jim and I met on the very first day of freshman year at the University of Delaware. How I ended up there still remains a mystery. Sure, they gave me a crapload of scholarship money, but in at least 87 different ways, it was the wrong school for me. That being said, I definitely didn't want to go to the tiny upstate Catholic college that my parents had in mind. At 18, I just wanted to get the hell out of New York. I didn't want to deal with the snow, mean state troopers patrolling the Quickway, or seeing people that I knew from high school.

What I didn't know at the time was that there were no bagels, no art-house films, no good hair stylists, and no one I was close with to be found in the state of Delaware. So when I met Jim, at a sunny September afternoon reading group for Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (one's of UD's required summer reading titles), I was happy just to have made a friend.

And we were great friends, inseparable for that first semester. He was, inevitably, the person who got me fascinated with the Old Testament, since we would stay up till all hours debating religion, talking about books (poetry in general, Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions in particular), classes, music, family expectations - all the strange and lovely things you think about when you're 18. When you don't have any idea that soon enough, you won't have time to think about them anymore.

In some way, perhaps because he wasn't one of the 87,000 students who already knew each other through Delaware's incestuous high school system, or maybe because we both loved the Beatles, poetry, G-d and hiking through the nearby state park, my time with him made up for almost all of the things I was missing about New York.

When my dad had a heart attack that December, Jim was the person who took the eight hour bus ride up to NYC and back with me, and then went with me on Metro North up to New Rochelle so we could visit my dad in the ICU. I remember that when we walked into the room, my dad was sitting up, with that irrepressible grin, green eyes sparkling. He pointed to the clock on the wall. "Do you believe this crap?" he asked us. "Not even a TV set. All I've got is this goddamn clock. If I had my gun, I'd shoot it."

All righty then. Hi, Dad, this is my friend Jim (who probably now thinks that the next bullet is for him).

After we broke up second semester (I went home over winter session to break up with the person I was dating; he didn't) we drifted apart somewhat, especially after his exceedingly immature and hostile high school sweetheart arrived at Delware in our sophomore year. But somewhow, we managed to stay friends throughout college and for years afterwards, years that brought us his wedding to that very same exceedingly immature and hostile high school sweetheart, my Masters degree and the pathetic first draft of The Bookseller's Sonnets, his divorce from his high school sweetheart, my getting pushed down a flight of South Philly stairs by a drunk ex-boyfriend.

When he finally left town in the wake of that painful divorce and moved to Alaska, I visited for a couple of weeks, some of which we spent hiking the Kenai Peninsula. Those weeks were among the happiest and weirdest and most awkward of my life. We didn't know where we were going, what we wanted to do with our lives, how to get ourselves out of the long-distance mess we had gotten ourselves into. Finally, homesickness got me in the end and even as much as I adored him, and as much as I cried on that eleven-hour Northwest flight back to JFK, I couldn't wait to get home to my real life - my friends, my family - back in New York.

Collectively, our parents thought we were a perfect match. I bought him a watch for Christmas. My dad helped me pick it out. "We're here for the watch now," he told the family jeweler. "Next year, I think we'll be back for the ring.

But in the end, we never picked out that ring. It wasn't anything specific, like religion (which it could have been) or the distance (which it also could have been). Time passed; being apart brought with it too many tears, too much drama. And by the time we had both made three trips back and forth across the country, we realized we just didn't love each other in quite the right way that you need to make a life together. It just wasn't destiny. It wasn't basherte. It wasn't meant to be.

Time has changed us both; last night we talked about sugar, carbs, the glycemic index. Then I got to hear all about life in Oregon with his wife and his two beautiful little girls - his is a good life, a blessed life. And listening to his advice, hearing us both laughing again, made me feel just as safe and cared for and befriended as I felt all those years ago, walking into the ICU to see my dad, afraid of what the outcome would be. I didn't feel old enough to lose a father then. I still don't feel old enough now.

After I hung up the phone, I was hit with a sudden memory, unbidden, of the two of us sitting together in the dark of the movie theater on Main Street in Newark, watching the documentary Imagine. The phone rang again - my friend Ellen, from California, checking in - and I picked up the remote to surf with the sound off. And there it was, nearly twenty years later, on VH1 Classic - John and Yoko, hand in hand, walking towards the warm orange light of a New York City sunset.

As I stared at the screen I realized it: we are both now almost as old as John Lennon was when he died.

So it goes.

A Public Service Announcement from St. Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower

"I have reached the point where I can suffer no more, because all suffering is sweet to me." -- Saint Therese de Lisieux, a.k.a. The Little Flower

Yeah, sorry, St. Therese: I'm not there yet.

For any of you who may currently be, or may someday be taking shots of methotrexate to control an auto-immune disease, here's some advice: your ass, really, is the best location.

Yesterday I had my weekly shot, and just not wanting to deal with the perpetual indignity of dropping trou every damn week, I asked my rheumatologist if I could get it in the arm.

Big mistake.

When I started methotrexate, I knew it was a tough drug to deal with, but my RA has become increasingly severe, and the other drugs (steroids, plaquenil, etc) weren't making an impact. So I decided to look upon methotrexate as a band of roaming, angry nuns who were going to restore respect and order to my g-dless immune system. Get those white blood cells under control. Show those damn rheumatic fevers who's boss. Whip out the paddle, yardstick, or two-pound metal ruler (favorite teaching tools of the nuns of the Convent of the Immaculate Conception) and go all Barefoot Carmelites of Prague on this disease.

But it didn't really work that way. First of all, I was taking pills. Six of them broken up into two pills three times a day - once a week. Everyone said to make sure I took them before the weekend so that I wouldn't be in bad shape once Saturday arrived. Unfortunately, there were still Thurday and Friday to think about. Methotrexate taught me many things: for instance, how many words one could make out of the phrase SPARE ROLL PUSH engraved on the toilet paper dispener in our restroom. (So far PURPLE and LEPROUS are my faves).

It also taught me a different way of observing Shabbat by being too sick to move from one's couch on Friday night, and falling asleep in front of What Not to Wear; or alternatively listening to Stacy and Clinton berate some poor unsuspecting woman for her fashion choices, as I hung out at an undisclosed location on the floor of my bathroom. I would, of course, much rather have been at services. Prostrating oneself before the porcelain god - not exactly the same as standing before the Ark, if you know what I mean.

So in desperation, I switched to shots. Went to the pharmacy to get hooked up with syringes and vials (and found out that syringes apparently are not an everyday request in Larchmont), but my health insurance wouldn't pay for me to self-inject in the privacy of my own home. So every week I get the grand and glorious opportunity, at $50 a pop, to moon my doctor and get injected with 6ccs of this horrific solution that looks like piss and smells like formaldehyde. I stand there, temporarily pants-free, feel that damn needle go in and think to myself that this just can't be good for me in the long-term.

My family, in their usual helpful way, thinks this whole RA thing is all a crock. At best, I think they see it punishment for my failure to adhere to their standards of beauty. That I got this disease by my own fault, by being overweight. And I shouldn't complain about it, because if only I were thin, I wouldn't even need the damn drug. And that when I lose the weight, the RA will pack up and go away. Not only will being thin solve that problem, I'll also get married! And then perhaps I'll even shoot rainbows and butterflies out my ass.

But this week was different. I got the shot in my arm yesterday, and lo and behold, I am sick as hell today, the way I was when I took the pills. So far, I've managed to eat an apple. And drink some water. And a couple of sips of diet Coke. What I really want is a ginger ale and maybe some rice, but I'm scared of the sugar and carbs. Maybe I can't win for losing, but then again, as far as the diabetic thing is concerned, I do agree with my family: I did this to myself.

So, Little Flower, suffering may be sweet to you, but it surely can't be as sweet as kvetching is to my people. I don't exactly see your point of view, because my illnesses - and maybe even yours, too - are anything but sweet - and I mean that in the Splenda sense of the word. But you're a saint, and heaven knows, I'm not. So perhaps it all worked out for you; then again, since you died at 24, you missed out on a lot of potential sweetness in life. I may be a kvetch, but I'm planning on avoiding dying young, no matter how sweet it is.

The Corner Table

Today this blog is being brought to you by the good people at the Scarsdale Borders Books and Music, located on White Plains Road in the Vernon Hills Shopping Center.

Technically I am working from home, but since the cable is out, and I have no phone line, I came on over here for the WiFi and the coffee.

This Borders holds a special place in my heart, as this is the place I spent a significant amount of time back in the spring of '05. Saying that being here saved my life might be a bit of an overstatement, but perhaps it isn't. That year, on March 1st, was the day I decided to end a relationship that I thought was going to be my saving grace - it was supposed to change my life, get me out of a New York that was haunted by the ghosts of smoke and ash and low-flying planes. He was supposed to be my rescuer, my knight, my sweet prince. But in real life he was sad and struggling, and the sadder he became and the more he struggled, the more he seemed to feel that it was my fault; that my success was somehow to blame for his failures.

And so it ended. I knew it was for the best, especially when friends and family members, one by one, came forward to spew the simmering invective about the Former Loved One; seeing how much angst and anger and anxiety they had held back taught me a lot about the lengths that friends will go to in order to keep from hurting your feelings.

But the transitional period didn't end with a breakup. Nope. Ten days later my father was gone, in a strange flash of blood to the brain, like the final bright blink of a lightbulb. One last light, one luminous blinding eyeful - then nothing.

After shivah I went back to work. A week later, I was told that while I had been out, the foundation realized that it didn't really need a communications director anymore. They handed me a three month severance package and wished me good luck.

It was that point at which I wondered what exactly the point was in waking up the next morning.

But there was a point; a light; a reason: the one thing my father had never let me forget was that I was a writer. That like him, I loved nothing more than a good story. When he was a homicide detective, it was as if he loved justice most, but in close second was his desire to put the right end to a story that a murder or a rape or an injustice had begun. I had been hit with three acts of injustice, right in a row - it was as if he was telling me that I needed to find the right ending.

And that was how I found the corner table - the one here, at Borders, where I arrived every morning between nine and ten, ordered my toasted bagel and a large Coke (oh, G-d how I miss Coke), and sat down at my borrowed laptop to write. In the space of ten weeks, I completed the first draft of The Bookseller's Sonnets, my beloved little book about murder and justice, rape and identity, history and eyewitness: with my story I tried to put to right all of the things that had happened to me. It wasn't justice, certainly, but it was something.

I sat at the table every day and gazed out the window at the little garden terrace. There were days that friends came over and bought me coffee and rice krispies treats; I loved that they knew where to find me. There were days I sat alone and wrote chapter after chapter, days that I sat and wondered if I would ever find another job, if I would ever find love again, and I wrote nothing at all. Some days I just sat and cried about my dad. Other days I was able to recreate the scene of his death in the hospital for one of my characters in a way that I could never do now because it is too sacred and scary to think about.

Three years later and the corner table is gone. It's been replaced by a couple of leather chairs, a small table to hold lattes and magazines. But that little corner is still sacred to me. It is still the birthplace of hope, of creativity, of my healing. It is the place that helped me create the perfect ending, and at the same time, a new beginning.

The Sixth Circle

Inevitably, on the weight loss journey up from the depths of hell, we pay a visit to my family. I'm placing them in Dante's sixth circle, as this is the home for the followers of Epicurus - which may be where all the trouble started in the first place.

Now, I'm not exactly in the business of blaming others for my own shortcomings. Hell, even when I lost my last job, I was the first person to say that I wasn't doing it well anymore. At the end of the day, I was just too damn sick to manage the workload. I'm not saying that the organization wasn't full of poisonous and depraved jerks (I'm not talking about you, Howard) and that I wasn't set up to fail pretty much from day one, because that was the nature of the beast, but hey, I take plenty of that responsibility on my shoulders - I wasn't performing to where I wanted to be. I'm just not sure that anyone would be capable of those unrealistic standards.

But getting back to the subject of blame, I have to say that my family has played a not-so-supporting role in this whole unhealthy lifestyle of mine. First and foremost, I have to question my family's relationship with food: everything in our home was about rewarding with food - both my parents (especially my dad) and my sister are total foodies. Whenever we had a celebration, the dinner or the dessert or the restaurant was always the first point of the rewards discussion. And when I showed an inclination to put on weight, even as a little kid, being left out of those celebrations (or, in other words, here's some melba toast rounds for you while everyone else gets birthday cake) wasn't easy. And for heaven's sake, who enrolls an eight-year-old in Weight Watchers?

Yeah, that's right: technically, I've been on this diet since 1978.

After Weight Watchers failed, it was Diet Center: that was when I was 14. Basically on this plan, you stop eating, and replace much of your normal food intake with vitamin supplements. At the time I was already taking a crapload of mineral supplements for my potassium/magnesium deficiency. So during this little sojourn, I was taking 96 pills a day.

What sort of parents think this is a good idea?

Obviously 96 pills a day is not sustainable for any length of time. Which leads to the next diet, a homemade speciality concoction called "Your Sister is Getting Married and the Bridesmaids' Dress Only Goes Up to Size 10."

Man, you should have seen it. It was 1987. Think Krystle on Dynasty. Off-white, puffed sleeves, huge balloony tulle skirt, tight-fitting bodice with a sweetheart neckline. I looked like a Green Bay Packer in a drag version of Swan Lake.

So even after the forced dieting (food consumption was strictly monitored and limited to melba toast rounds, sliced smoked turkey, and celery) and being dragged to aerobics classes three times a week, I still couldn't fit into the damn dress. I did, however, end up with a lifelong aversion to the songs "You Should Hear How She Talks About You" and "Let's Dance," two of the workout songs from Susan Marlowe - I still get a facial tic every time I hear them.

When they finally gave up two weeks before the Big Day and allowed me to choose another dress, I was blamed for "ruining the wedding." Yeah, glad I was able to help. Considering that they're now contemplating divorce, maybe the dress was a contributing factor?

After that, in the summer between freshman and sophomore year of college, I made a stupid move on my own account: Optifast. It worked. Oh dear G-d, did it ever work. 50 lbs gone in six weeks. Then there's this little problem called eating. Because you don't eat for the six weeks - you only drink shakes four times a day. Of course you can lose 50 lbs in six weeks. But guess what happens as soon as you start eating actual food again?

Yeah, it happened to Oprah too.

The highlight of being on Optifast for me was the one time I cheated. I went to Lange's Deli in Scarsdale and bought myself a turkey sandwich. I ate it holed up like a criminal in the back of the vault in the Bank of New York branch where I was working as a summer teller. To this day, it was one of the most delicious things I have ever eaten. Mostly because I hadn't eaten any other food in four weeks.

As a result of Optifast I got a new wardrobe, a new boyfriend (or three) and a chronic case of strep throat which lasted for 9 months and ended up with me getting my tonsils out the next summer, by which time I had pretty much gained all the weight back.

After that there were several other initiatives, both family- and self-inflicted. Jenny Craig (expensive failure); another round or two at Weight Watchers (Fat & Fiber, 1-2-3 Success - whatever); some grapefruit thing. When I moved back home after grad school for a couple of months while looking for an apartment, my mom actually went out and bought fat-free American cheese to replace the Kraft singles I had in the fridge. She put them in the same packaging and figured she could fool me into eating more healthfully. I don't like Kraft singles anymore, but seriously, like I wouldn't notice?

The strange part is that even with all of the food issues, yo-yo dieting, and conflict that this caused in my family, they never changed: we still celebrated everything with food - it always remained the reward for success, and was the favorite punishment and exclusion tool for my family whenever I wasn't where they wanted or expected me to be weight-wise.

I ended up doing Weight Watchers again in '01 and was very successful: I think I had actually grown up enough to want to take control and do something healthy for myself. But even though I was successful, the old ghosts got me and as soon as I started to look good again, I freaked out and fell off the wagon. You see, being fat has always been the easiest way to deflect unwanted attention, to keep potential bad people away, to not have to deal with my past and to not have to deal with the fear of bad things happening to me in the future.

But now there is no choice as to whether or not I can stay overweight: I have to do this, for better or for worse, for ugly or for pretty, whether I want to or not, otherwise I am not going to live long enough to achieve the things I want to do: writing another couple of books, becoming a rabbi, maybe even going back to Alaska someday. The fact that it is now a health issue and not a looks issue does take a lot of the extraneous baggage off the cart but I know it's going to be an issue and I need to find the best way to overcome it once it starts happening. It's not even that I worry about meeting someone like Claude again - I just don't see myself as wanting to have that kind of attention - and of course I am afraid that the people who love and value me now will love and value me differently once I start to look different - as if I will be a better or more worthy person in their eyes than the one I am now.

Not half an hour ago, my sister lectured me about how first of all, it was never about my looks (bridesmaid dress anyone?) and that I am too focused on being a sick person, that all I do is worry about doctor's appointments, blood tests, treatments for RA, whether or not I am strong enough to go back to the gym - and how no one should have to hear about how tough it is, how depressing it is to be around me. It's funny - when I was eating badly I obviously couldn't do anything right. Now that I'm really trying to get healthy again, and I could really use some support, obviously I can't do that right, either.

I know it's no one's fault but my own that I am in the bad place that I'm in now. But it's sad to me that I am still failing to achieve my family's support or approval in this process. And it's even sadder to think that without their constant focus on my weight for the past thirty years, I may not have had quite so many problems and issues with it. Unfortunately there is no way that I can see to take them out of this equation. I only wish the equation was a basic mathematical function, not the calculus of memory and fear and sadness that it seems to be at the moment.

Holding

As I write I am literally on hold with my insurance company, as I failed to answer two security questions correctly, and am now locked out of my account.

Interesting music. So this is where Bruce Hornsby's career ended up.

Are there even actual people creating this music, or is it just computers using the Phil Collins 2.0 software?

Yes, I know you appreciate my patience. I'm glad my call is important to you.

OK. 5 minutes, 4 seconds and still holding. Thanks for letting me know you are experiencing heavier than normal call volume. Oh sure, I'd go to your website, except that I am still locked out of my account.

Oh wow, a person! And she's helpful! And - bada bing, bada boom, I'm in! Woot!

+ + + + + + + + + + +

That being said, I am holding up pretty well with the new dietary regime, although it feels quite a bit more Pinochet than New Frontier. I really want something totally unhealthy for lunch - I won't even say it here because I am so damn suggestible - but I can't. I know it would be bad and wrong and stupid when I am doing so well. But this isn't easy. Then again, neither is coma, blindness and heart disease.

Embracing the Yuk

Well, kids, it's official: I did it. I've got me some diabetes. Or as I will probably continue to refer to it, the diabeasties.

I know, my darlings, I know. This is not good. My dad had diabetes as a complication of heart disease; his diagnosis was rapidly followed by both of his sisters coming down with the hot mess. And of course, the news isn't much better on Mom's side: her dad died of it; but what was worse, two of her aunts lived with it: a veritable cornucopia of blindness, amputations, high blood pressure: the gift basket no one wants. And I know that my family and friends are now officially worried sick: I totally understand. If my darling Connor or Ryan came home with this news, I would basically clear the house of all the Nilla Wafers, Devil Dogs, Fruit Roll-Ups, Teddy Grahams, etc. and forbid them from ever consuming that crap again. And it is because I love them and I want them to have happy healthy lives.

So I am working on ridding myself of the bad stuff: my friend Joe today told me: "Here's the rule: no more white food." Which sucks because that eliminates a whole bunch of stuff I like, but in the immortal words of the Brady kids: When it's time to change, you've got to rearrange -- who you are into what you're gonna be (sha-na-na-na na na-na na-na, sha-na na-na-na).

What happens next? A whole battery of tests: something called an A1C to see just how reversible this bad boy is: followed by more tests, classes at White Plains hospital on how to manage blood sugar testing (if it comes to that), medication, wellness, etc. The good news is, I have lost 12 lbs already on Weight Watchers (after 3 weeks back on the chain gang) and when I began that, I decided to eliminate sugar, in all its evil forms and with all of its empty promises.

Having poured the Tennessee Valley Authority Irrigation Project's worth of Coke down my gullet for the past 4 years, I can say it's a big change. No sugar, no ice cream, no cake, no high fructose corn syrup, no chocolate, no candy, no soda, not even ginger ale. Everything in the market seems to have a big old skull and crossbones on it. Only problem is, everything that I should be eating still has a Mr. Yuk sticker, if only in my head. I just don't like the healthy stuff - whole grains, veggies, fiber - ugh, gross. I am your classic All-American first-string fat-ass, susceptible to temptation and convenience. If I didn't live in New York, with all these great restaurants and cooking options, G-d help me, I'd probably be a regular at Olive Garden.

But it's time to embrace the Yuk. Fiber One has no points, and it doesn't taste that bad. Weight Watchers ice cream is great even though I think it's made of whale parts. And I tried whole wheat bread today for lunch, and you know what? It was pretty good. I must keep chanting the mantra. The Yuk is health and wholeness. The Yuk is good and righteous, and I don't want to get my toes cut off. The Yuk is the light, and I don't feel like having a stroke just yet. The Yuk is inspiration. And the Yuk is love.

The RJ Guide to Reform Judaism: 30 Stories

Normally, as many of you are well aware, I absolutely prefer to hide my light under a rock. Nonetheless I am just so damn tickled at being part of Reform Judaism magazine's recently-published feature The RJ Guide to Reform Judaism: 30 Stories, which explores through several first-person narratives what it means to be a Reform Jew today, with all the complications, celebrations, insights and ideas that identifying with our movement can bring about.

So what does it mean to me, you may ask? For those of you that know me, and know my story (Catholic upbringing, conversion, blah blah blah future rabbi-cakes), obviously you know that it means a great deal. I meant what I said when I wrote that having attended Catholic school was probably one of the the most influential factors in my decision to convert to Judaism. Our school environment was filled with reverence and the understanding that G-d's presence was real; that in fact, S/He was in the room with us. To that end, every lesson began and ended with a prayer; if we heard a siren outside the window we immediately stopped what we were doing to pray for the person in trouble - a habit I still carry to this day, though without the Hail Mary text. Which is interesting, given that my office is next door to a firehouse. The nuns warned us never to get used to the sound, and never to tune it out - if we did, we could miss an opportunity to ask G-d for help on behalf of someone who might not be able to ask themselves.

The memories of those classrooms are more vivid and concrete than any other classrooms I ever sat in - the way the light poured in through the windows, the set-up of reading and math and coloring areas, even the taste of the pretzels that came in those industrial cardboard boxes. We thanked G-d for all of those things, and others too, on a daily basis: every morning began with singing about the miracles and marvels around us, and every day concluded with the nuns blessing us to leave and return in safety.

Sound familar? It did to me when I started exploring Judaism. It was amazing that so much of my original faith was there, waiting to be reclaimed. When I switched to public school, I lost that sense of reverence, of safety and sanctity. But what I never knew was that it was there all the time, and I was lucky enough to find it again. Heaven knows that I probably overparticipate in congregational life - my friend Danielle once remarked that when you convert, you overcompensate so hard for not being born Jewish that you end up on all the committees and you know you'd end up giving your car to someone if they asked for it nicely. But what I get back from all of my participation is that same sense again - of light coming in, of protection and safety, of knowing that I'm blessed whenever I leave, and whenever I come home again.

So I'm very proud to represent my congregation in 30 Stories. For more about it, or to read the narratives themselves, click here.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it:

Two years ago, my very first blog was designed to be a creative outlet as I set out on a journey to lose weight, get healthy, and turn my life around. Both projects - the blog and the weight loss - failed miserably.

Here's what happened in the time spent between blogs: My father died. I was laid off. I wrote a book. I lost some weight and gained it back. And then I got a new job, allegedly as an Associate Marketing Director (but what she really wanted was a yes-girl) working for a world-class cultural institution that employed some of the most ridiculously evil people I've ever met.

After a year of mental, emotional, and physical workplace abuse, I got sick. Very sick. With a staph infection that wouldn't respond to medication, threats, violence or entreaties for mercy. Three hospital stays later, I ended up hooked up to an IV machine for 3 hours a day for two months, had a tiny piece of bone removed from my left foot, and ended up with an extended tour of duty on crutches.

After the whole ordeal ended, I was diagnosed with severe rheumatoid arthritis - "a little souvenir of a terrible year."

Oh, and after I got sick, you guessed it: I got fired.

On the other side of the darkness, there were also good things: I finished my book, and found a fabulous new agent. I applied to rabbinical school. And - miracle of miracles - I got in, but failed the Hebrew entrance exam.

A year later and I'm still trying to get it together: to learn this language so that I can escape the realm of Sales and Marketing; to get healthy and back to a reasonable facsimile of myself before the Death Eaters got me. I still feel haunted by what happened in my old job, by the consequences of not taking care of myself - consequences of pain, vulnerability, sadness and solitude that I still live with every day. Like a prairie dog who is too scared to do more than peer up from her hole in the ground, there are days I prefer to spend underground, because even with all of the good things, and all of the blessings, in my heart, I'm still afraid of the light.

I tell myself it doesn't matter. People lose jobs every day. People lose themselves in illness and are forced to cut back. I try not to focus on the losses - the loss of prestige, the decrease in expendable income, not even the uselessness and boredom I feel every day when I'm not racing around like a crazy person - the way I used to - just to try to avoid incurring the wrath of She-Who-Must-Not-Be Named (but who will be called Mimi Fiedler in my next book).

I tell myself I need the time to heal, the time to make sure I don't do anything stupid again. I tell myself I need better boundaries. And finally, I tell myself that if I had actually stuck to my guns, and achieved that original goal of eating right, losing weight, and being healthy, perhaps I wouldn't have ended up in such a bad place.

So I'm starting over. Call it Operation Or Chadash - a new light.

In my first post on my old blog, I remember quoting Deuteronomy - the verse I chant every year on Yom Kippur:

It is not up in the heavens, that someone will have to go up, and get it, and bring it back and teach you. It is not across the sea, so that someone will have to cross it, and get it, and bring it back and teach you. No, it is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, and you can do it.

That was how I felt - as if my goals were near to me, as if - even broken - the world was still full of possibility. But today I reflect on the words Lady Augusta Gregory's poem, "The Grief of a Girl's Heart:

You have taken the east from me, you have taken the west from me.

You have taken what is before me, and what is behind me.

You have taken the sun, you have taken the moon from me.

And oh - my fear is great - you have taken God from me.

It's amazing what a job - an illness - a broken promise - can take with it when it finally goes away. So perhaps this time, it is not so much about what I need to lose. It is about what I need to get back.